Onboard Diagnostics (OBD, OBD II, OBD 2) provide an interface whereby entities, such as dealers, mechanics and third parties (such as insurance companies) can plug into a vehicle to access information on a vehicle BUS or from vehicle modules. Because of the use of the port by consumers, installing third party devices, for example, delicate pins included in the port can often be damaged. This creates warranty alerts then for the vehicle, and can be costly to repair, since a broken port will not allow the dealer to access the diagnostics.
Additionally, as the port provides a physical interface that can access the vehicle's CAN BUS(es), there may be other hardware and software that would like to pull information from this BUS. If all these resources were to try to access the current implementations of the OBD II port, additional opportunity for damaging the integrated port would occur.
U.S. Patent Application 2012/0158211 generally relates to continuously collecting information from vehicle devices via a vehicle data bus, storing information in a database, and retrieving information from the database in response to requests from remote devices. One embodiment includes a vehicle position determining device, a wireless communications device, and a controller apart from at least one operable vehicle device, connected to the vehicle data bus so that the vehicle data bus extends from said controller to at least one operable vehicle device. Additionally, the controller is configured to query at least one vehicle device via the vehicle data bus and store information provided by at least one vehicle device in a database, receive requests for information from a remote device via the wireless communications device, query the database for the requested information, and send the requested information to the remote device via the wireless communications device.